Shrooms!

It is a testimony to my husband's support of me growing and raising things that he's OK with this being in the living room. He has fungophobia. I'm convinced of it. Initially I thought that he thought that all mushrooms grew in manure and urine. Even having corrected that misconception, he still can't look at this. I should probably stop following him around with the box saying "Look! Look! They're growing!"

We should be good to go soon. This surface was smooth when I got it. Looks like I'm getting a lot of shrooms! And I can get lots of flushes out of this cake. It's 10 inches high and you're just supposed to shave off a layer, soak it for a week in the dark then go again. That should satisfy my mushroom cravings, especially since the entire king oyster is edible. The stem tastes pretty much the same as the cap and they're super chunky.

I really love mushrooms and am completely obsessing about growing them now. I looked up collecting spores last night. Easy as pie. I don't think I need to buy anymore supplies. All you do is buy a mushroom from a grocery store, take off the stem, put the cap gill side down on a piece of white or black paper, depending on the color of the spore (white paper for black spore and vice versa), put a glass jar over it and the next day, the spore print is on the piece of paper. Then you dump the spore in the growing medium, usually packed sawdust then you shove it into a hole in a hardwood log and cover that with wax. Ridiculously easy. I'm glad I spent the $20 on the kit I have now but now that I get it, I probably won't do it again. I found portabellas at a nearby grocery store. Now I'm just waiting for it to warm up enough to "plant" that. Very exciting.

REally! Up to getting the spore print that's what I learned this fall on a mushroom course, on how to get photos of the spore print. Funny the course never told us we could plant the print.

I'm going to try it. I'm sure there are ways to maximize yield but if our tree trunk outside can suddenly sprout mushrooms, surely some of my spores will take!

Pic of the day. Now I'm anxious. The misting drops are just pooling on the shrooms because there's no substrate exposed to absorb the water so I'm thinking of not misting anymore. The yield seems extreme. Getting bumpy.